Posted
by
Unknown Lameron Monday March 17, 2014 @06:51PM
from the netcraft-confirms-film-industry-committing-suicide dept.

ConfusedVorlon writes with word that Warner Bros backed out on their promise of digital downloads for backers of the Veronica Mars film "Backers were promised 'You will receive a digital version of the movie within a few days of the movie's theatrical debut.' Warner Bros are providing a non-downloadable ultra-violet coupon (although Veronica Mars is available for download through other stores). The download is already available on the Pirate Bay. The download is even available on commercial stores. The users have already passed over their $35+. But rather than meet the demand for a DRM-free download, Warner Bros would prefer to return the original pledge to backers who complain.

What does this tell us about how movie studios view the world? There can't be a better indication of willingness to pay than 'they have already paid' — are these the pirates WB fears?"

Heh, it's not even "customers" they're denying a download to - if you follow the nomenclature of Kickstarter, then it's *investors*! Evidence, if you needed it, that you're not really an investor when you get involved in Kickstarter, you're just paying a premium to pre-order something, and praying you won't get screwed over.

I think it's closer to throwing some disposable cash over the wall in the vague hope that the participants deliver something resembling their pitch. If you are that worked up about your contribution, don't play with kickstarter.

They ARE investors.. The whole point of Kickstarter is for people with a good idea to solicit capital from interested investors. If the original terms of the agreement are not honored, perhaps the original investors can sue for their percentage of ownership of the entire profits of the operation.

"They ARE investors.. The whole point of Kickstarter is for people with a good idea to solicit capital from interested investors. If the original terms of the agreement are not honored, perhaps the original investors can sue for their percentage of ownership of the entire profits of the operation."

Yes, BUT...

They are "investors", in the sense they are investing money in the product, but they aren't "investors" in the usual sense of investing in something in order to make a profit later. You are "investing" for a fixed reward that has little or nothing to do with the product's eventual success.

No, they are NOT investors.If they were investors,they'd be in trouble with the FTC, which hasn't yet setup regulations allowing such.

People who use Kickstarter are pre-purchasing whatever it is they're being sold. That can act as income for a company, and thus a funding source, but that does not make people who purchase things via Kickstarter investors.

One of these days, we will be able to invest in this manner, but not yet.

Also if you were an investor you would receive imputation tax credits if your kickstarter failed (after raising the specified capital), and would receive shares and a dividend if it was successful.

I was trying to setup a similar scheme to Kickstarter in New Zealand with actual dividends and stock issues, but ran into a brick wall, as there is a certain club of people who are the only authorised persons to operate a stock market or make IPOs in NZ, and the only way to get into the club is to be invited by th

KS only just became available for NZers BTW. I assume it took enormous amounts of time to get through the IRD and all the other red tape bullshit.

It should also be noted that almost all NZ SMEs are not publicly listed. The fraction is tiny. Private investment is the way of things because it avoids an awful lot of overhead and unnecessary waste if you can go private.

Kickstarter does not offer refunds. A Project Creator is not required to grant a Backer’s request for a refund unless the Project Creator is unable or unwilling to fulfill the reward.

Project Creators are required to fulfill all rewards of their successful fundraising campaigns or refund any Backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill.

Project Creators may cancel or refund a Backer’s pledge at any time and for any reason, and if they do so, are not required to fulfill the reward.

So, basically, offering a refund is in line with the original terms of the agreement, meaning that backers have no grounds on which to sue, since WB is technically upholding their end of the contract. And regarding something else you said:

They ARE investors.

They may be "investors" in the colloquial sense of the word, but they have no claim to ownership, since the Guidelines [kickstarter.com] make it quite clear that:

So, long story short, WB sucks, but the backers have no recourse except to name-and-shame WB if WB is offering them a refund in place of the promised reward. They have no claim to ownership or a share of the profits that the film makes.

Project Creators are required to fulfill all rewards of their successful fundraising campaigns or refund any Backer whose reward they do not or cannot fulfill.

Project Creators may cancel or refund a Backerâ(TM)s pledge at any time and for any reason, and if they do so, are not required to fulfill the reward.

So, basically, offering a refund is in line with the original terms of the agreement, meaning that backers have no grounds on which to sue, since WB is technically upholding their end of the contract.

No, they're not. Read again. An offer isn't good enough. They have to refund any Backer whose reward they do not fulfill.That means refunding every single backer, and not just those who go through the hassle of asking where their promised download is, and keep the rest of the money.

I'd like for Kickstarter to take them to court over this. But of course that won't happen, because Warner has deeper pockets, and that's all that matters here in the US.

No, they're not. Read again. An offer isn't good enough. They have to refund any Backer whose reward they do not fulfill.

Sure. You're being pedantic, but yes, you're correct. Even so, they don't have a magic 8 ball with which to tell who's upset. The best they can do is make refunds available to anyone asking, since as far as they knew, they fulfilled the reward already. After all, the campaign stated the film would be distributed via Flixster to backers within a few day's of the film's theatrical release. What actually happened? Codes were provided to backers to access the video via Flixster within a few day's of the film's release, exactly as promised.

The problems began because some users were either incapable of using Flixster (e.g. geographic restrictions, difficulty in redeeming the code, etc.) or were unwilling to accept Flixster as a valid fulfillment of the reward (e.g. DRM, streaming instead of download, etc.). Regardless, a quick scan through the comments on the Kickstarter page demonstrate that WB is doing everything they can to make things right by everyone, providing backers with compensation if they purchase it via an alternative service such as iTunes or Amazon, and refunding backers who would prefer to simply wash their hands of the whole ordeal. They're even discouraging backers from instructing others to not ask for a refund because it might harm the chances of a sequel, telling everyone that it's perfectly fine and that it's most important that no one feels like they weren't taken care of.

WB still sucks for using that service, but as far as I can tell, this is a case of the Internet making a mountain out of a molehill. There's WAY more outrage here than is reasonable, given what's been going on, unless there's something that I'm missing, which is entirely possible.

But where were we ever told that it would be a DRM free digitial download?

I'm a backer. I never saw any mention of it being a DRM free digital download. I have access to be backers website, I read all of the comments on kickstarted by Rob and his team. No-one ever said that it would be DRM free.

As far as I'm concerned, they delivered the promised download, they met the conditions.

Kickstarter doesn't do investing. It is a pre-purchase...I challenge you to find the word "invest" in the below (hint, it isn't there, nor is it *anywhere* on the Kickstarter page)

From Kickstarter:

Pledge $35 or more

22997 backers

You will receive a digital version of the movie within a few days of the movie’s theatrical debut, plus the T-shirt, plus the pdf of the shooting script. Naturally, you will also receive regular updates and behind-the-scenes scoop throughout the fundraising and movie making process. Available to US, Canada, Australia/New Zealand, Mexico, Brazil, and Select EU countries (Now including Norway and Switzerland! See Project Description for full list)

It's neither. It's funding. You are providing funding to the owners of the project to get the project off the ground. You may get rewards in return but they are not a pre-purchase, pre-order or any such thing (and Kickstarter is very clear about that, if people bother to read what the fuck they agree to when they sign up). This confusion was the catalyst for their policy changes on physical projects a while back. As you said they are also very clear it is not an "investment". That comes with a whole world of regulatory pain (and would essentially make the whole concept impossible).

Precisely. It's not an investment; Kickstarter expressly disallows project creators from granting equity, a share of the profits, or other such things. Nor is it a store; Kickstarter explicitly states as much in their FAQ documentation.

In this particular case, it sounds like the reward may not be fulfilled in accordance with the terms of the contract, so the contract stipulates that the project creator must grant a reward to the backer, which it sounds like WB is indeed doing, as per what they agreed to do [amazonaws.com]

Kickstarter is very careful to explain in their documentation that your investment is not a purchase. You are betting that the owners of the campaign will come up with a viable product.

Sometimes, your "investment" only reaps you something like a T-Shirt or even a bumpersticker, or dinner with the inventor. In any case, it's not a "purchase" of the product, even if the "rewards" sometimes make it look more like a purchase than an investment.

Exactly. It's a bad decision but ultimately if they are offering backers the choice of their money back (through an easy process) then it isn't like anyone who cares about having a downloadable copy is out of pocket. Plenty of Kickstarters fail to deliver at all, to deliver on time or to deliver exactly what they said they would; that's an inherent issue when backing something so early in the process and backers usually expect a considerable discount in return.

UltraViolet (UV) is a free, cloud-based, digital rights library that allows users of digital home entertainment content to stream and download purchased content to multiple platforms and devices.

according to the link UltraViolet provides downloads. The issue was that UltraViolet is buggy. It provides downloads in theory. I think there was some region restriction also with the service. That didn't work with KickStarters international reach.

Sure, if all you do is watch movies from beginning to end in your living room it works great. There are many things that do NOT work very well:

Offline viewing such as on transit, airplanes, road trips, camping (children get very bored sometimes), etc

Rewind. I should not have to wait 10 seconds for it to re-buffer in order to rewind 3 seconds because I missed an important piece of dialog that was important to the plot. I can't believe the player doesn't just cache the last minute of the video to make this seameless, this would use what, 10-20MB of extra ram?

Forcing high-definition. Sometimes netflix just decides to play in low definiton no matter how fucking long you let it buffer. In fact, letting a movie buffer (download) ahead of time so I can watch it in glorious high-def after dinner would be a VERY nice feature.

Marathon watching. At least once I've been half-way through a TV series when netflix decided to remove it from the line-up. Thanks alot for that one! This isn't even counting the rediculous number of movies trilogies where netflix only has movies 2 and 3 (seriously, WTF).

Internation watching. Live in the US and visit Canada? Get ready to not be able to watch your shows until you get home because Canada is not worthy of 90% of netflix movies.

I use a country switcher browser plugin, so the international part don't bother me, even though I travel a lot. But I do like Spotify's solution to this better. As for the other scenarios - yes, Netflix could still learn from Spotify, which has the perfect solution to offline and cached playing. Spotify is proving that it is possible for a streaming service to deliver all of this. Except for the remove part, that is not Netflix/Spotify's fault, but the content owners being dicks.

Marathon watching. At least once I've been half-way through a TV series when netflix decided to remove it from the line-up. Thanks alot for that one! This isn't even counting the rediculous number of movies trilogies where netflix only has movies 2 and 3 (seriously, WTF).

Internation watching. Live in the US and visit Canada? Get ready to not be able to watch your shows until you get home because Canada is not worthy of 90% of netflix movies.

...these are the fault of the fucking content owners and their greed. This is well documented. Fuck them.

I mean, why else would Netflix have these gaps in their service? Trying to save disk space in their server farms? Perhaps Netflix feels your filthy Canadian loonies aren't good enough tender for the other content and therefore refuses to allow your benighted population to glimpse the wonder of the sheer volume of sewage flowing forth from Hollywood?

Sort of. It is the studios' faults that netflix must license for each country separately and that some movies/shows are more expensive or not available in some countries, but some of these are shows I can see on regular Canadian cable TV, so I'm sure netflix is to blame for at least some of the missing content.

The series I was referring to was actually removed as part of their "regular subscription rotation" or some BS that would not have been a problem had I been able to download the entire series before g

Meh. I really doubt Netflix prefers to make a smaller library available, so the blame goes back to the content owners. Just like I can't pay for online access to HBO shows without paying for cable first (ie. HBO Go). Some content owners are unreasonable (there's no FRAND) or are using their library to try to get their own streaming system to have traction, or whatever addled plans these fuckers come up with this week. So, just because a show was syndicated on a Canadian channel doesn't mean Netflix could re

Just like I can't pay for online access to HBO shows without paying for cable first (ie. HBO Go).

I bet that's because of the cable companies.

"Oh you want to offer your shows online? That's fine! Yes, that's fine... Oh, what's this? The renewal contract for your cable channel! Huh, look at that... It seems to be moving closer to the shredder... It looks like it's getting really very close... Quick, do something to stop it! No no... You sit where you are... You just sit right there, and make it stop moving towards the shredder... You have that power. Sorry, what was that? A little louder, please... I

UltraViolet downloads, better known as the Common File Format, are not available as of Jan 1, 2013. Streaming providers who are UltraViolet ready are able to offer their own proprietary downloads. These downloaded copies are unable to be copied from one device to another, and are not cross-platform.

UltraViolet (UV) is a free, cloud-based, digital rights library that allows users of digital home entertainment content to stream and download purchased content to multiple platforms and devices.

according to the link UltraViolet provides downloads. The issue was that UltraViolet is buggy. It provides downloads in theory. I think there was some region restriction also with the service. That didn't work with KickStarters international reach.

It's not even that Ultraviolet is buggy, but Flixster is buggy. This just highlights why UV is doomed if they don't fix their shit and drop this "You need an account here, and here, and here, and you need to link this account to that account, and this one to that one, and that one to that other one" BS. Then the poor saps that managed to do that were having issues with Flixster apps on different platforms. It's bad enough for the tech savvy, image trying to help your parent or no-so-technical sibling navigate that maze.

took the money to finish the show and nowI refunding it? Is there's interest on this money since they didn't deliver the original deal? Im sure anyone else who lent them the money for the rest of the project probably got extra income as percentage of thir loan.

took the money to finish the show and nowI refunding it? Is there's interest on this money since they didn't deliver the original deal? Im sure anyone else who lent them the money for the rest of the project probably got extra income as percentage of thir loan.

They are refunding $10 (their cost of the UV download, their words, not mine) or you can go buy it on Amazon, iTunes, whatever and they will cover the cost (or they were saying that last I heard). The money is coming from the marketing budget that WB provided, not the production budget that the Kickstarter money went to.

The Ultraviolet version is downloadable via the Flixster client, which plays back from your local machine. Backers were never promised a DRM-free download. Personally, I'll take a DRM download with no weird distracting artifacts over a watermarked DRM-free one. That said, DRM is evil and terrible and always sucks. However, it's not true that the Veronica Mars people broke their promises. That's a lie.

I agree - I've downloaded the movie twice from Flixster. Anyone who thinks that a DRM-free download would be provided is dreaming. WB is offering to pay for downloads from other services such as Amazon and iTunes. The OP reads to me like a lame excuse to justify piracy.

Yes, some number of KS backers are having trouble. I know at least one who hasn't received her code. But it reads to me as if WB is trying to do the right thing, on top of this unprecedented same-day digital release.

"Downloaded" or "Streamed"? Having a downloaded copy of a movie and being able to stream a movie from their servers is not the same thing. If they told me I would be able to "download the movie" or they would provide a "digital copy" I would expect a copy of the entire film on my local machine that I could access at any time even offline.

If they said they would provide access to their streaming service for the film I would have different expectations.

It sounds like they are not allowing a copy for download. This is something that I find very annoying about digital media services. Amazon allows me to download a copy to 2 devices at a time, but only movies that I own. The movies from their Prime service cannot be downloaded. This is a bit of a PITA with the ability to play children's TV shows being one of the major benefits of the Prime service. Not so useful when you take your Kindle into a restaurant that doesn't have free WiFi available.

It didn't say "a DRM crippled digital copy", it just said "a digital copy". If there were going to be severe restrictions on what devices the file could be played on and under what circumstances they needed to state that up front.

No, we didn't pay a studio. We paid Rob to create a movie. Rob then worked with the studio to get extra funding and promotion.

If Rob didn't get agreement with the studio, then he still was going to make the movie with the money that he raised. It might not have had a wide cinema release, but he had enough money to made a reasonable quality movie.

The Kickstarter used the phrase 'Digital Version' in some places and 'Digital Download' in others. I see no mention of DRM-free, so all they have to do is hand out Amazon credit to those who complain about the streaming solution. But no, they'd rather pay out a bunch of money than give people something that matches what they paid for. I'm thinking everyone who has a piece of this (the production company, any stars that get a piece of the action) ought to probably demand an accounting to make sure Hollywood didn't charge them for the returned cash...

The Kickstarter used the phrase 'Digital Version' in some places and 'Digital Download' in others. I see no mention of DRM-free, so all they have to do is hand out Amazon credit to those who complain about the streaming solution. But no, they'd rather pay out a bunch of money than give people something that matches what they paid for. I'm thinking everyone who has a piece of this (the production company, any stars that get a piece of the action) ought to probably demand an accounting to make sure Hollywood didn't charge them for the returned cash...

They were (I assume still are?) offering to reimburse the $20 if you submit a receipt from another streaming service, or you can take $10 in cash (the amount they say is the portion that went to cover the cost of the Flixter/UV version). So they are giving them the option to get the film in a version that works for them, just you have to pay then get a refund from WB.

What would be news is if we did something about it. Boycott and sue, and send the police to their offices to confiscate property and arrest senior management. Also send the police to their homes to confiscate and arrest. Those among us who own shares should deal with WB management by meeting and voting to cut their pay, especially bonuses, and fire them. We should also ram new laws through our national legislatures to decriminalize copying, and rip up those parts of trade treaties to do with intellectua

People don't want that bullshit UltraViolet cloud-based streaming service the studios seem to think will succeed if they keep pushing it and don't provide any other options - people want DRM-free files in a standard/popular format that can be played on any device in whatever video player they desire, without said files being held hostage by the studio.

It seems that Hollywood is incapable of selling things in a format that people want. I know why of course - they want control. Honestly I'd prefer getting my movies legit if I knew I could get something at least equivalent to what I can get on The Pirate Bay (so at least 720p, in a DRM-free format, in a format/container that at least can be played on most video players instead of some proprietary one that is Windows only for example).

Maybe I'm asking too much... no, wait, like hell I'm not. If cracker groups can release high-quality 1080p MKVs of movies with subtitles, chapter markers and audio-commentaries, so can the paid folks at the studios. But they don't, because for whatever reason they'd rather keep the status quo (which doesn't make much sense in our connected world anymore) than risk a bit less control for more income. Clearly I'm too ideological for this world.

I'll add one more requirement: the popular/standard format should be convertible to other formats for viewing on disparate devices.

Dear Hollywood,

I would like to be able to pay you a reasonable fee for a permanent and transferable license to view your movies in any and every format. I want to be able to watch flawless HD on my 60 inch display at home, compressed HD on my tablet, and highly compressed lower def files on my cell phone. I want to be able to use the hosting service of my choice for streaming

The most shocking part is that people even bother with the legit methods at all anymore.

Probably the few intelligent thing I've ever heard Bill Oriely say was in regards to piracy. It went something like "The music and movie industries have spent the last 30 years teaching our children the worst behavior imaginable. They've glorified violence, prostitution, and general hooliganry... and now they're surprised their customers aren't above pirating a song?"

Artists hate the industry, the industries partners hate the industry, the industries customers hate the industry. Christians hate it, Liberals hate it, everyone on earth hates it. How long, exactly, do they expect to stay in business being held in such low regard as to be slightly better than Cigarette and Oil companies?

Well, that's certainly one of the bigger "Fuck You!" I've seen the studios hand out, and they've got a track record of some pretty big middle fingers to the "other 99%" of us. But my question is, "When is this going to stop?" Not as long as people are paying $25 to park their asses in a theater seat to watch Brad Pitt mumble around, or $19.99 for a DVD they'll watch once or twice.

Backers were unhappy with the method via which Warner chose to release Veronica Mars to financial supporters. Rather than receiving a digital download or a code to access the film on iTunes or Amazon, they were asked to stream Veronica Mars via the studio-backed, cloud-based storage service Ultraviolet on the Flixster website

That sure sounds like receiving a "digital version" of the film to me.

Son, this is Slashdot where every kid with a 3Mbps pipe think anything in digital form should be free regardless of the cost to create it. Then after watching/listening the 5th time and sharing it with everyone they know, they'll go on IMDB or Reddit and talk about how much it sucks.

Become the next revolutionary zuckerberg and start a DRM-free online store for movies. Download it, keep it forever. Of course you wouldn't initially be able to slice deals with the big movie companies, but start with indie and semi-indie stuff. The big ones will follow as they see that the concept is working. DRM-free works for GOG just fine, why not also for movies?

...is not true. The US movie studios are an incredibly tightly knit incestuous little group of rabid ideologues and the greediest fucking bastards you ever hope not to meet. Their owners all go to the same golf clubs and strip clubs and yacht clubs, send their kids to the same prep schools and universities, and they marry their kids off to each others' kids. They set themselves against digital distribution a generation ago and they will never ever ever admit they were wrong. Two full gen

The Veronica Mars kickstarter [kickstarter.com] promised "You will receive a digital version of the movie within a few days of the movieâ(TM)s theatrical debut..."

A digital version. Last time I checked, while most people may dislike UltraViolet, it is a digital version.

Now, I understand the servers got hammered and there were issues with the process and Warner Brothers offered a refund so people could buy the movie from a competing digital store but they fulfilled their promise or made efforts to rectify the situation when their servers failed under the load.

Also, they made no promise of DRM free. Doing a search of the Veronica Mars Kickstarter page, I find exactly zero mentions of DRM so why you would think they owe you a DRM free movie is beyond me.

You're clearly itching to pick a fight and begging to justify torrenting the movie rather than paying for it but, sorry, you haven't cited so much as one valid complaint. They offered a digital version of the movie and they delivered a digital version of the movie. Users that encountered issues were offered a refund so they could obtain the movie elsewhere since their servers weren't up to the task rather than WB just pocketing the money and saying "well, try again another time".

If you're an investor who thought WB was going to put up an FTP or P2P server with a ISO link, you're a fool. The producers (i.e. NOT YOU) want to make money, not silence the cheap-skate streaming crowd who won't pay for shit otherwise.

I don't know. "receive a digital version" is somewhat ambiguous. I might interpret that to mean that I would get a copy of the movie that I could keep and use offline, not just a licence to stream the movie from their service.

Yes. You might interpret it that way; I would too. I bet their lawyers could beat up our lawyers. They carefully said what they knew people would hear one way, meaning it another, and by the strict letter of the words it's OK. I just saw Sherlock do the same thing on BBC; there it seemed clever and entertaining.

Actually, the legal precedent in cases where a contract is ambiguous is that the person who doesn't write the contract generally gets what they expect. It's a little like the old "one child cuts the cake and the second child chooses the piece" scenario. If you write a contract which may be ambiguous in any way, you can be held liable for the reasonable misinterpretation, especially if there were any extra-contract promises, implications, or if there are certain standards or expectations by a "reasonable" en

A digital version. Last time I checked, while most people may dislike UltraViolet, it is a digital version.

You've clearly never tried to use UltraViolet. I wouldn't count it as digital, in fact I wouldn't count it as analogue. After 1 hour of frustration with my last attempt to get a UV download to work I gave up and just ripped the damn blu-ray in the triple with AnyDVD.

The movie, after it was released and they started making money, then basically paid back part of the kickstarter because they are reneging on the kickstarter deal?

Read again. They're not reneging at all; they fulfilled their rewards. The problem is that they fulfilled one of the rewards in a format that a lot of the backers didn't like. Enough backers were upset that they offered to refund anybody who didn't like the option they were given, which is really going above and beyond what they were required to do.

Backers chose to support a kickstarter project. They didn't "buy" anything by supporting the project, they pledged an amount towards it and were promised to receive something in return.

Now where WB has failed spectacularly here is that they have gone back on this promise... which is, of course, utterly inexcusable. They have absolutely *NO* right to keep even one penny of any of the money that was pledged where they had promised something that they will not make good on (whether it was entirely by choi

WB is saying thank you for the free grass roots publicity campaign and the interest free financing. Here's your money back. Hey you didn't actually think we would honor our commitment to provide you a downloadable copy of the movie? We planned on blaming someone else for not being able to do it and don't let the fact that we own UltraViolet distract you from our excuse.

you're describing anarchy and not capitalism. capitalism expects contracts to be upheld.. without that it doesn't really work as capitalism but as whoever has the most power.

in this case, it should be looked like that they sold a product and didn't deliver. merely returning the money at this point is not enough because they had the capital to work with all this time, as such they should return the capital + reasonable interest.

or if you look from consumer rights side of things they should be thrown into jail for trying to sidestep consumer protection rules by pretending that they weren't selling a product but providing and "investment opportunity" or something akin to charity but with promised product delivery.. in all reality they were a fucking big company making a product and taking pre-orders for said product and then delivering something different.

in this case, it should be looked like that they sold a product and didn't deliver. merely returning the money at this point is not enough because they had the capital to work with all this time, as such they should return the capital + reasonable interest.

In general I agree with you on this. I don't like seeing situations where a company doesn't deal honestly with people and gets away with it. Unfortunately looking at the kickstarter FAQ it appears that their terms of service do allow them to get away with just refunding the money. For your typical kickstarter where people made a good faith effort to supply what was promised I can see that for something like this I am less sure that is appropriate.

I wonder if it has occurred to them how that could be exploited. Say I come up with a really good sounding idea and get people on kickstarter to give me a bunch of money for it. Some of these things have raised multiple millions on there. For the sake of example say I convince people to give me enough that I end up with $1 million after kickstarter and Amazon get their fees. I turn around and invest that in an aggressive stock fund and get 10% return. My guess is you could string people along for several years putting out bogus updates. So after say three years you have $1,331,000 less taxes etc. Then you come back give a sob story about how the project has fallen apart and you just can't complete it. Then following these terms you send all your backers an offer to refund their money and that they should just contact you if they want a refund. My guess is half the people won't even ask for their money back. So lets say 50% of the total amount pledged ends up being refunded. So you promptly pay out $500,000 while apologizing profusely for the problems etc. Since the amounts per individual are so small most people aren't going to really investigate what went on in any detail. In that example you refund everyone who asks and still walk away with $831,000 less taxes. Heck even if everyone demands a refund you'd end up with something around $300,000 less taxes.

Under what theory of capitalism would you have a product that people had *ALREADY* paid for and can trivially deliver but decide to give back the money and not deliver because of no rational fathomable reason?

Example; if someone said a watermelon is blue on the inside, but turns red when you cut it open, how could you prove them wrong? How could they prove they're right?

You couldn't and they can't. There is no method available to confirm or disprove what was said about the watermelon.

WHY does it turn red when you cut it open? Because it's exposed to oxygen in the air? Then cut one open in a vacuum. Or in an oxygen-free atmosphere. or maybe it turns red because of an interaction with the steel of the knife. So use a plastic knife. And so on. These are all testable.

Same with evolution. Point out a fossil that doesn't fit, and win a prize. except you can't, so you don't.

> Same with evolution. Point out a fossil that doesn't fit, and win a prize. except you can't, so you don't.

I always say to people that don't believe in Evolution that if they can collect the data, then make it reproducible and can write a good paper explaining it all, then they can win a Noble Prize and completely and utterly change a major branch of science. Their name will go down in history one of greatest minds ever in the entire length of mankind.

To them it probably sounds like asking a socialist party from Europe to write an article that gets applauded by Fox News. I suffered through enough Bible classes to find the appropriate quote (from parable of the sower):

The disciples came to him and asked, "Why do you speak to the people in parables?" He replied, "Because the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them. This is why I speak to them in parables: "Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand. In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: "'You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.'

In their view of the world we've closed our hearts and minds to God and are blind and deaf to the truth, so in their eyes one scientist agreeing with another scientist on evolution is just the blind leading the deaf. You probably think the Nobel prize or scientific consensus means something

To them it probably sounds like asking a socialist party from Europe to write an article that gets applauded by Fox News. I suffered through enough Bible classes to find the appropriate quote (from parable of the sower):

Example; if someone said a watermelon is blue on the inside, but turns red when you cut it open, how could you prove them wrong? How could they prove they're right?

You couldn't and they can't. There is no method available to confirm or disprove what was said about the watermelon.

WHY does it turn red when you cut it open? Because it's exposed to oxygen in the air? Then cut one open in a vacuum. Or in an oxygen-free atmosphere. or maybe it turns red because of an interaction with the steel of the knife. So use a plastic knife. And so on. These are all testable.

Same with evolution. Point out a fossil that doesn't fit, and win a prize. except you can't, so you don't.

You can spend a lifetime making up WHYs and figuring out ways to prove or disprove them. That does not even come close to answering the fundamental question about the color of the watermelon.

The only solution to this problem is to have faith and live your life according to what the inside color of the watermelon means to you. You can even believe that there is no watermelon - that's a type of faith as well.

Now can we go back to being insulted that big companies found a way to minize risk in their commercial ventures by using a bait & switch approach so fans are the ones taking the risk?

This was a studio film all along- the Kickstarter purposely misrepresented the situation. The Kickstarter made promises those running the Kickstarter could NEVER deliver.

WB got suckers to use their money, with ZERO profit sharing, to finance a studio picture- a new low even for Hollywood. To make matters worse, despite the minor value of this movie to WB, WB wasn't even prepared to hide this fact by giving the suckers that paid 35 dollars a break, and letting them download a proper digital copy to own. If that had been too much of an 'issue', WB could easily have created a few thousand DVD's to send out instead, so the $35 dollar team could have made their own digital 'rips'.

It gets WORSE. The 'geniuses' at WB seriously under-estimated demand for the film in the cinema, and released the film (in the USA) to 30%-50% of the optimal number of screens. The excellent per screen average of the way too small release is proof of this.

So, the film gets made, gets good reviews and people want to see it. But the suits at Warner Brothers snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by focusing on all the mean, petty hurt they can pile of the original 35 dollar suckers. And NO, giving these people their money back counts for nothing. WB behaviour over this whole affair has been despicable, and shame on the people who made the film for NOT honestly admitting from the start that it was a traditional studio production.

You're an idiot. It was made clear on the the very first day that Warner Brothers was involved. Right there on the front page of the Kickstater, on day one. Warner agreed to pay for distribution and promotion if Rob Thomas could help fund the production budget and show fan interest in the film, and that is exactly what happened. Did WB screw up by forcing it through Flixster (guess who owns Flixster, btw), Yes, but they never lied about any aspect of the Kickstarter project.

This was a studio film all along- the Kickstarter purposely misrepresented the situation.WB got suckers to use their money, with ZERO profit sharing, to finance a studio picture- a new low even for Hollywood.

You're an idiot. It was made clear on the the very first day that Warner Brothers was involved. Right there on the front page of the Kickstater, on day one. Warner agreed to pay for distribution and promotion if Rob Thomas could help fund the production budget and show fan interest in the film, and that is exactly what happened. Did WB screw up by forcing it through Flixster (guess who owns Flixster, btw), Yes, but they never lied about any aspect of the Kickstarter project.

So, WB was using the backers' money and let them assume the risk if the project fails. But if the project makes a profit WB gets it and not the backers. And you're saying the backers knew and agreed to assume all the risk and take none of the profit right from the start . Somehow, I don't think AC is the idiot here.

Uh, every kickstarter backer knows (or should know) that they are assuming risk when funding. That's part of being on kickstarter. As for rewards, a few people out of the 92,000+ that funded the project are having a problem getting part of their reward to work, and WB is working with them to get it to work, refund part of their pledge, or cover the cost of getting the content elsewhere. How are they ripped off again?

I mean a store selling the Veronica Mars movie, of course. That's what this is about. The headline quotes the article saying that other stores are offering a download in a context that's clearly designed to imply that while others are getting a DRM-free copy, backers are not. This is not true. This post is so subversive to this very successful Kickstarter project, it smells to me like it comes from the same people who told Rob Thomas "No" to backing his film in the first place. Those people would love t

To me it seems quite clear that WB acted in extremely bad faith with malice aforethought. It is not so clear that a good lawyer couldn't argue against an underfunded lawyer that they technically met their promise. But that doesn't mean that it's not quite resaonable to bad-mouth them, and let everyone else know how you feel about them.

FWIW, I have refused to purchase or support friends purchasing over paying to view movies, or other merchandise from any MPAA or RIAA member company for over a decade, so I